Saturday, 31 May 2014

May 2014 Wrap-Up

What happened in May? With IFFP duties finally over for the year, it was just another month, with another pile of books... My K-Lit obsession is now in full swing, and you can rest assured that there'll be plenty of reviews of Korean literature in the coming months (especially now that I've discovered the joys of my local university library!).

Translation matters, and Grossman is a world-famous exponent of the art. However, this book, taken from some lectures she gave on the subject, is nothing more than a turkey - a huge disappointment :(Tony's Recommendation for May is:

Miklós Bánffy's They Were Counted

If I'm honest, this wasn't a great month for reviews, with Grossman's turkey accompanied by reviews of some good, but unexceptional, books. Some of the better books included those by Hwang Sok-yong and Amara Lakhous, but in this company, Bánffy's lengthy story of a society on the brink of its downfall stands head and shoulders above the competition :)

*****I'm very excited about what's coming up in June - not just because I have a stack of books that I'm eager to get reading, but also because one of my favourite events is up again. The eighth edition of Bellezza'sJapanese Literature Challenge starts in June, and (as always) I'll be dusting off some books on my J-Lit shelves to join in. I'll also (finally!) be starting the book I decided I would finish this year - The Tale of Genji :)